To: Members of the House Committee on Financial Services
From: David Timmons, Senior Policy Manager, National Taxpayers Union
Re: NTU’s Views on April 30, 2025 Committee Markup
On behalf of National Taxpayers Union (NTU), the nation’s oldest taxpayer advocacy organization, we write to express our views on several measures slated for consideration before the House Committee on Financial Services on April 30, 2025. NTU appreciates the Committee for your taxpayer-friendly legislative proposals (“Committee Print”) to comply with the reconciliation directive included in the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2025, H. Con. Res. 14. This Committee Print includes several proposals that end a costly Green New Deal program, end wasteful spending at several government agencies, and effectively eliminate a duplicative agency. Therefore, NTU urges Committee members to support most provisions of this Committee Print.
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Sec. 50001 - Ending a Costly Green Retrofit Program. This proposal pulls back unobligated funds from a program at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that the Trump Administration has recently shut down. Called the Green and Resilient Retrofit Program, it basically used federal money to renovate apartments across the country, so long as the owners promised to keep them “affordable.” This program duplicates programs already in place at the state and local level, and is an inappropriate use of federal taxpayer dollars. Rescinding the remaining unobligated balances of this program will save taxpayers approximately $1 billion. NTU supports Sec. 50001.
Sec. 50003 - Limitation of Funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). This proposal would stop runaway spending at the CFPB that was used to fund salaries for activist staffers who create roadblock after roadblock for American financial institutions. This would help force the agency to focus on truly useful regulatory work, and limit its ability to foray into wide ranging big-government policy priorities. It would also save taxpayers at least $3 billion over 10 years. NTU supports Sec. 50003.
Sec. 50004 - Redirection of Remaining CFPB Civil Penalty Funds (CPF) to the US Treasury. This ingenious legislative proposal would discourage overspending by activist-oriented CFPB staff and help reduce the federal budget deficit at the same time. The CPF funds would be redirected only after all payments to direct victims are made, and would save taxpayers over $230 million over 10 years. NTU supports Sec. 50004.
Sec. 50005 - Limiting spending by Treasury’s Office of Financial Research (OFR). This measure will help limit “mission creep” by OFR beyond its original mandate of researching and analyzing risks to financial stability. In recent years, OFR's focus has broadened to include areas like climate finance and gender and social issues that are well beyond the specific realm of financial markets. This measure would cap OFR’s assessment ability in a way that would reduce agency spending by approximately 70% from previous levels, cutting costs by around $700 million over 10 years. NTU supports Sec. 50005.
NTU appreciates the Committee’s consideration of our views on these important issues and we stand ready to work with you on ways to protect taxpayers by limiting governmental costs. Should you have any questions about the recommendations in this memo, please do not hesitate to reach out to David Timmons at dtimmons@ntu.org.